Monday, June 30, 2008

And from a law professor, no less. I certainly respect Professor Somin's work, but this post is just irresponsible:

As one of my law school classmates put it, every point you score above the minimum needed to pass is evidence that you spent too much time studying. I took this excellent advice to heart, and saved a lot of time and aggravation as a result (primarily by not attending any Bar/Bri lectures, and confining my preparation efforts to reading the books and taking some practice tests). If you're reasonably good at managing your time and memorizing legal rules, you can probably do the same thing.

It's not often that a professor tells students to spend less time studying. But when it comes to the bar exam, for many students it's the best pedagogical advice I can give.

I've gone on the record about how people overstudy for the bar exam. But not attending BarBri classes? Reading the books and taking "some" practice exams? That's a really, really bad idea. The costs of failing the exam far outweigh the costs of any extra studying. Go to class, do a lot of questions, read the outlines a number of times, and do some essays.